Saturday, December 7, 2013

Elevator Humour.... not on!

This appeared in Mumbai Mirror today...

Elevator humour…

There are over a dozen of us waiting for elevators.
Men and women. Friends and acquaintances. Mostly married. Some single. The elevator
doors open…. And there is an awkward moment as one woman and one man get ready
to enter. The man roars, “ Are you sure you want to get in with me?” Everybody
bursts out laughing. He adds, “You stay in your corner. And please don’t touch
me! I will keep my hands above my head till we reach your floor.” Irony meets pathos. We have converted the
disgusting Tejpal case into a national joke now. It suits everybody.

This is just one recent example of how we
are responding to what is in fact, a national crisis. Not the Tejpal case alone.
But what it represents on a larger scale.Men and women are
treading gingerly around sensitive terrain, afraid to miss a single step
and hit a land mine. Everybody is wary….mutually suspicious. Unable to handle
the tension in the air, the easiest (and stupidest) thing to do is convert the
whole thing into a joke. Once you start
laughing at something, it is no longer a threat. And therein lies the real
danger. I don’t understand why it is so difficult to get the point. To address
the real issue, which isn’t complicated at all! It has to do with respect.
That’s it. Once we understand the basics, and start respecting one another,
nothing else is needed. No rule books. No laws. Every man who has ever touched
/ brushed past a woman deliberately, knows in his heart of hearts that he has
crossed a certain limit. That his behavior is out of line. He doesn’t require a
complicated judicial system to tell him he is being offensive. If he persists,
he should also know the repercussions of that act. The question of misreading
or misunderstanding the situation simply does not arise. And if it does he has
to pay the price for his ignorance. In
all fairness, the same goes for any woman trying these tricks with a man. If her
advances are rebuffed , she should immediately get the message and back off. Or
face the music.

The Tejpal
imbroglio has triggered off a debate that is strictly urban in tone. Urban and
elitist (come on, who do you think attends Think Fests?). Let’s not mix up
issues and talk about a naughty judge and other incidents. And let us also be
candid and admit Tejpal is not the only one. The media world is full of
Tejpals. They are out there even as I write this, and some of them are very,
very nervous indeed! Tejpal got caught, that’s all. He got caught because a
young woman decided to confront him. There are countless young women in the
same position who have kept their silence.
Going by recent revelations about the Goa writers’ gang, chances are
what took place two years ago, will now be tabled and aggressively addressed by
the women who were harassed. Their argument is interesting since they insist
what they endured is no different from the Tehelka case and should be treated
in exactly the same way. It does not matter when the incidents took place. What
matters is that such men need to be nailed – regardless of how well connected
they are. This is the other positive off shoot of the Tejpal case. For all his
influence and power, all it took was a spunky young woman to expose him without
shame or fear.

So, please, let’s not reduce this sensitive
issue to a joke. It’s really not funny. And let’s discourage people from
jesting about Tejpal and others like him. That is an insult to all women. There
are countless clever digs doing the rounds, most of them are misogynistic and
sick. It upsets me greatly when women join in the laughter… adding insult to
injury. If women would start objecting to sexist remarks being passed in their
presence, not only will they be standing up for personal dignity, they may also
be protecting themselves from an unwanted physical encounter. Participating in
vulgar exchanges that demean women is indirectly telling men it’s okay to go
further and grope. Let us start with ourselves first. The joke has been on us
for way too long!

14 comments:

That's exactly the point. It is the women who should be instructed. They laugh for all misogynistic comments which are not funny but get all worked up and crucify somebody for some innocent comment made. When in a crowd, a rich, powerful & influential man gets all the unwanted attention & "ready to laugh for everything said by him" signal from women. Women are also to be blamed for this. BTW, we can laugh for the elevator joke. Let's not lose our sense of humour in this milieu completely & look for scapegoats in men & make an issue of every innocent joke cracked & behave like morons. That's what is happening today.

This is their humorous culture i think! That's how such man's joke/frustration comes out from their sick mind!Yes! You are right, it's blunder to take lightly such jokes or in frustration do the "tit for tat" in that very language! In most such cases women try their best to keep cool and ignore but probably that ignorance is the curse in itself!

The problem, Shobhaa, is that Tarun Tejpal himself has become a joke. The women in India are being treated as jokes. So, like that idiot Sinha said about rape asking women to enjoy the experience, now, we see people laughing at themselves. But, the question to be asked is whether the exercise of making jokes out of Tarun Tejpal and the girl is meant for correcting oneself or of having corrupted oneself incorrigibly

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